Here is what the kitchen looked like when we moved in except that there used to be a large pantry where that wall area has been torn out. Our contractor built a new pantry right next to where the old pantry was located. This allowed for enough wall space to let us relocate a ten foot stretch of upper cabinets from the north wall to the west wall. And then we cut a big hole in the north wall to [...]

Sometime during his Freshman year (as seen above) he started getting interested in oddball shirts.

The one he is wearing above always confuses me,. I believe the drawings are supposed to look like a rock, paper and scissors, but I always think the drawings look more like poorly drawn underwear, a crushed tin can and scissors which doesn’t seem to correspond to the caption “Choose Wisely” unless one is in extremely unusual circumstances.

Some of you may remember that Roy, from “The IT Crowd” also loves to sport the quirky t-shirt.

I told Calder about Roy’s shirts thinking this might be a super fun way for my son and I to bond.

“Hey Calder”, I said, “Did you know that Roy from The IT Crowd also wears funny t-shirts?”

“Who?” he said.

“Roy… from The IT Crowd. Remember? We watched it together once…. I think… or maybe I just dreamed that…”

“Whatever mom. Do we have any food in this house?”

But I did not answer my son because I had already plunged myself deeply into the midst of a beautiful fantasy wherein my eldest son and I were sitting in front of the computer, watching The IT Crowd, laughing and slapping each other on the back and giving each other high fives and singing songs, and roasting marshmallows and catching fish and hiking through the woods and gathering nuts and berries and reading stories to each other and doing shadow puppets and making daisy chains and playing Frisbee and tag and hide and seek all while the filtered forest sunlight bounced off our shoulders and backs and warmed us through as we plopped down on the bank of a shimmering stream to eat a picnic lunch while communing with nature and each other, both fully aware that in only three point nine seconds, he would be grown and ready to launch and I would be a wrinkled, grey haired remnant of my former self holding my breath in anticipation of the piercing pain of his imminent departure.

“Mom…. mom…… Hey Mom!” the voice of my son called me back from my hazy forest dream….

“What?!?!?”

“When are you going to the grocery store?”

“I…. I…. I don’t know… ”

“Will you please buy some peanut butter… and not the healthy kind. And also get some bagels… not the healthy kind also.”

Here ends a mother’s exquisite anguish over the rapidly approaching departure date of her eldest child.

Now where was I???

Oh yeah… Calder’s shirts…

One of his friends made this one for him.

You can’t really see this one can you?

Too bad.

It’s really cool.

And then we arrive at the scandalous shirt.

My son purchased this shirt sometime over the summer with his own funds. The first time I saw him wearing it, I asked him if he planned to wear it to school.

“Yes,” he said.

“You might get kicked out,” I responded.

He said, “Why?”

“Because it’s scandalous!” I bleated.

But my son just shrugged and got the same vacant look in his eyes that he always gets when he talks to his mother more than sixty seconds in a row.

But he did wear it to school a few days ago.

And he did not get kicked out.

“What did people think of that shirt Calder?” I asked when he got home.

“They didn’t really think anything.” he said.

“Oh C’mon Calder!!” I insisted, “Surely they said something!” As usual, I was starting to get desperate for just a tiny TIDBIT of information from my extremely laconic son. “TELL ME WHAT THEY SAID!!!!” I screeched.

“Why would they say anything mom?”

“Because your shirt has a picture of girl wearing teensy shorts squirting a can of whipped cream into her mouth!!!”

“Oh that…” he sighed, “Well a few people asked me who the girl was.”

“AND WHAT DID YOU SAY???!!!” I asked feeling like I was lugging a tractor trailer up from the bottom of a well.

“I told them she was my girlfriend from California… and her name was Ashley.”

And then we laughed and his entire childhood flashed in front of my eyes and I started to get weepy and then he told me to go the store and buy some Pop Tarts and some frozen waffles (not the healthy kind) and I snapped out of it.

I know, I know… another video. But you know what? These people are saying amazing things. How can I not pass it along? Bill proposes that creationism will last two more centuries. That seems like a long time to me, but at least he sees an end to it.